Consumers have a variety of digital tools available to them which allow them to manage their financial accounts. For example, transaction summaries and account balance information are generally available in online banking accounts accessible to consumers via personal computers and mobile communication devices. At any time, a consumer that has enrolled in online banking with her financial institution may log into her online banking account and view up-to-date information about her various financial accounts with that institution, such as past and pending purchases, deposits and transfers. With the widespread use of credit cards, debit cards, inter-institution transfers, online payment accounts, and other payment methods that, as part of processing of a transaction, include communication with a financial institution holding the account used in the transaction, the consumer's online account is generally updated in real-time (i.e. at the time of a transaction) or near real-time to include either a completed debit or credit, or a pending debit or credit. Because of this capability, many consumers find that their online banking account is an adequate substitute for manually maintaining a register of transactions for each financial account. Thus, in determining the funds available to them, many consumers rely entirely on the account balance and transaction information that they can readily access in online banking. While relying solely on the information available in online banking to determine the balances and other status of their financial accounts may be a suitable solution for those consumers that only engage in transactions using payment methods that immediately impact the financial account, for those consumers that still use paper checks for payments and purchases, there are a number of drawbacks to this approach.
Unlike the real-time and digital payment methods that have become commonplace today, payment by traditional paper checks does not generate any record, electronic or otherwise, at the time of payment (transfer of the check from payor to payee), or necessitate immediate use of any computer network in communication with the financial institution holding the account on which the check is drawn. For example, a payor may write and deliver a paper check to a payee on a particular date, and the payee may wait two weeks before depositing or cashing the check. During that two-week period, the check will not appear as a pending payment in the online banking account of the payor. Indeed, the financial institution will have no record of the payment whatsoever and will not even be aware that the payment has been made. Thus, if the payor forgets about the check and relies upon the balance information in online banking to ascertain her available funds, she will overestimate the amount of funds available to her for spending and could inadvertently result in exceeding the balance in overdraw her account when the check is eventually processed when the payee deposits or cashes it. Therefore, there remains a need for an improved system for maintaining an updated check register in connection with an online banking account that tracks pending check payments.